Michael Harring stood off to the side of the platform, calmly watching the arranged memory engrams play on the large holographic projector. While memories in this format were limited to just the visual and auditory spectrums, seeing Lord Walker speak was still impressive.

  He’d watched these recordings many times, as had everyone else in this room most likely. However, he still wanted them fresh in their minds when he addressed them. This was the fourth introductory session he was leading and by now he’d grown used to the process.

  As one of House Walker’s troop-leaders, he was responsible for overseeing their forces from a managerial standpoint. He’d volunteered for the opportunity to induct the followers himself, passionately stating that helping them understand ‘why’ they were here was more important than allowing them to figure it out for themselves. Letting people misinterpret Lord Walker would only end up wasting their potential and hurting House Walker in the long run.

  When Lord Walker’s image faded from view, the hologram above the platform turned off.

  Returning to the podium at the center of the platform, he looked out over the recruits sitting in their seats. The room they were meeting in was one of the briefing halls in the barracks compound. Normally used for presentations and lectures, each guard barracks had one. He’d gone around to each barracks and given this speech. It was necessary to prepare them for what their new lives would entail.

  Almost all the followers of House Walker had moved into the estate’s military section, filling up the former guard quarters quite nicely. The buildings were all of the highest quality, and clearly intended to house a formidable force. House Dorchen had built them well, and House Walker intended to take full advantage of them.

  Adding some steel to his voice, he projected loudly, “You’ve all given up everything to join House Walker. Some of you have left families, jobs, and responsibilities. Others have taken up the opportunity to leave your past mistakes behind you to clear the obstructions you’ve accumulated on your path. Regardless, for whatever reason, you’re here now.”

  Sweeping his attention across the multiple rows of filled seats, he said, “Many of you have already seen these memories of Lord Walker. Many of you were there to experience them yourselves. However, as a whole, you all lack the context to understand what Lord Walker was trying to tell you.”

  Leaving the podium behind, he began pacing across the platform while he continued, “Lord Walker cares about you all more than you can possibly understand. He wants you all to succeed on your path. House Walker is being built as a place where we can all work together to support each other without having to give anything up. The sacrifices you will make under House Walker’s leadership will be up to you.

  If you want to do the bare minimum, no one will punish you for that. If you want to leave, you can. While your oaths will be recorded as broken, House Walker will not chase you. Lord Walker has made it clear that he will not enforce any of the lawful strictures that bind you. He only wants those who want to be here.

  Lord Walker believes House Walker will be a place for adventurers to gather. Adventurers are people who will seek out danger and opportunity, earning coin and honor for doing what is right and good. It requires a certain mindset to be the kind of person who will stand up to the horrors of the world and not fold under the pressure. Lord Walker calls them wackos.

  The Walker Adventure Company was a term coined by Lord Walker himself. He envisions an entire house of roving wackos who will seek out danger and work together to overcome it. The bonds of camaraderie you will develop with the people seated next to you will be unbreakable. They will allow you to do things you never thought yourself capable of.”

  Noting the expected fire and passion building in their essence fields, he retook his place behind the podium.

  Softening his tone, he said, “But as you all know, House Walker is not one of the city’s houses. It belongs to the kingdom. Lord Walker is a unique, and as such is a citizen of no single city. As his oath-bound followers, now you aren’t either. Your fates are tied to House Walker, so long as you wish to follow him.

  Being a wacko is about more than just facing danger without fear in your heart. It is about embracing what you are capable of. It’s about being the best you can be, and then striving to be more. Every challenge you face, every obstacle you overcome, every person you save, every enemy you kill, they will all pave the path forward, and in time… will level you higher than you can imagine.”

  Gesturing with his arms wide, he declared loudly, “So, look to the men and women seated next to you. You are responsible for one another, and every victory or defeat is one you will all share. House Walker is your home now, and it is up to you to ensure its foundation is solid.”

  Having ended his prepared speech, he was about to walk off the platform, letting the next speaker who’d be giving out assignments step forward when he heard a voice call out from the assembled followers.

  “Is it true that you once faced Lord Walker in battle?” the anonymous voice shouted with enthusiastic curiosity.

  Not expecting the question, Michael visibly paused midstep before returning to the podium.

  Keeping his voice calm, he replied, “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  Feeling the ether in the room boiling with the expectation of the story, he took a deep breath and began, “When I first met Lord Walker, I was working as a hunter. My team and I were not the best people, we occasionally took jobs that weren’t what any would call ‘good’ when we needed the money. Therefore, when word came down that someone was looking to make a new noble disappear in the wilds, a new noble who was barely out of his awakening, we accepted the contract.”

  Pausing at the podium, memories of the event flowed over him, his body reflexively shivering in fear.

  Coughing lightly to clear his throat, he continued, “We ambushed Lord Walker and his party, killing everyone but him almost instantly. However, Lord Walker wasn’t so easy to put down. He alone stood against us.”

  Michael then fell silent, remembering the team members he’d lost that day. The entire meeting hall seemed to hold their breath, waiting patiently for him to resume his story.

  Unable to stop themselves, that first voice who’d asked the initial question shouted, “Then what happened?!?”

  Eyes hardening, he looked out into the room to focus on the enthusiastic young man who was eagerly awaiting to hear how Lord Walker survived.

  “Suffice it to say, I’m the only one of my team to have survived the experience. Lord Walker required a prisoner… someone to interrogate,” he added in a whisper loud enough to carry through the silence.

  Shaking off the memories, he said, “Lord Walker does not quit. He does not accept things that he does not want to. He is an adventurer! Body mind, and soul. When faced with an obstacle, he destroys it. My team and I were his obstacles that day, and we were destroyed.

  For whatever reason, Lord Walker personally saw value in redeeming me. He petitioned the Tower of Law to give me a chance to return to my path. Later, through chance or destiny, I was lucky enough to experience him showing me and many others how to walk that path. He showed us the way forward.

  And now you all have been given that same chance… I suggest you seize it!!”

  Without another word, he walked off the platform. Inside, he was feeling the burning need to push forward, to prove himself worthy of the chance he’d been given. He was not just the criminal scum he used to be, or the butcher’s boy without any prospects… he was something more… he was a wacko… one of The Walker’s Wackos.

  —--

  Nero had experienced enough of the local culture to understand that everyone in the carriage was busy multitasking with their links. Cathleen and Angleton were holding a conversation while sending out orders. Vera was interjecting when appropriate, coordinating their supplies and support while doing the same over hers. Even Nick was sitting there semi-slackjawed while focusing on his link.

  Nero on the other hand felt a little annoyed at not having anything to do. While it was nice that nobody was asking him to participate in the planning, he didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t in control of anything.

  ‘This is why I didn’t want to call my house, House Walker. Something with my name on it should probably involve me,’ he thought sourly while ignoring the hushed conversations going on around him.

  From the context, he could tell that they all had it handled, and he could just imagine the furious preparations that were going on back at the estate in response to the rapid-fire pings they were sending out. Yes, he knew about the pings because he was being cc’d on everything they were sending. His link kept reminding him.

  With nothing better to do, Nero connected to the Thought Hub through his link and skimmed what they were sending him. There were deployment orders to the various levels they’d set up, supply requisition orders, wagon and transport requests, and typical stuff that sounded official and important.

  He ended up reading one of the earlier pings from start to finish. It was a chain of replies back and forth between the house leadership about how they were going to set up his house’s forces. Unsurprisingly, It looked like everyone eventually ended up agreeing with Cathleen.

  His house would be using the same formation system that some of the northern houses used. She would be the battle leader, the one in charge of everything. Below her were the battle commanders who were mostly taken from Knight Angleton’s former forces. Then came the troop leaders who managed multiple team leaders.

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  From what Nero could tell, it was a system designed for flexibility, with no permanent assignments. When needed, they could come together to form a cohesive force, but they could just as easily break up into teams of five and act like hunter squads. On paper, it sounded good, but he thought the system was overly complicated. It looked like they’d need to specifically assign everyone to teams before every deployment… every time.

  Shivering at the thought of how much paperwork that would entail, Nero closed the ping and hid it far away in one of the ‘folders’ he’d set up for pings he wanted to save.

  No longer interested in following along with their pre-battle planning, Nero instead chose to open one of the books he’d saved on his link. This particular book was one about spell design theory which he’d found in his new library. While 80% of it was confusing as hell, the remaining 20% continued to give him ideas on how to futz with the few spell forms he’d managed to mostly understand.

  After leaving their cab and taking a teleporter back to the estate, Nero got to see exactly what he’d expected to see upon his return. The entire grounds were filled with people running around like they were late for work. Crates of supplies were being loaded into carts, horses were being saddled and hooked up to transport wagons. The ether around him hummed with controlled chaos.

  Not knowing where he should be headed, he decided to tag along with Cathleen who was slowly accumulating people around her as she walked. One after another people were quickly briefing her on what was being done. Like a roving efficiency machine, she curtly and firmly replied to every one of them and sent them back off like a boss.

  All it took for him to be ignored was a little flex of effort into his essence field. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t care, but he was getting pretty good at hiding himself with that essence technique former evaluator Quincy had shown him.

  Overall, he found the atmosphere surprisingly professional. He could only assume that Vera was behind everyone wearing tabards with his house’s symbol on them. The grey and teal highlights gave the people a surprising amount of uniformity despite everyone being in different kinds of armor. The only exceptions were the people in robes, who had acquired a house patch over their chest for some reason.

  Through his essence field, he was able to see hundreds of people creating the wagon train that would be heading off for the war. It was an odd sight considering that around the main road leading up to his estate was a manicured landscape that wouldn’t look out of place in an Emily Post fantasy reimagining.

  Chuckling to himself, Nero noticed a random guy pushing a wheelbarrow full of manure. Thinking about it logically, it made sense that someone had to be the one to clean up after the horses. Watching closely, he saw the guy skillfully use telekinesis to swipe another hunk of dung out from under a carriage and deposit it onto the rest of his collection. The casual display of powers once again highlighted to him how commonplace things like that were here.

  Shaking his head, Nero realized that he’d misplaced Cathleen and her entourage. ‘Oops,’ he thought to himself before looking around in confusion.

  Using his essence field, he quickly found the group she was leading around but decided that it wasn’t worth chasing after her. He was already carrying all the supplies he’d need, and there wasn’t anything for him to do here. He’d be better off finding a quiet place to sit his ass down and maybe do some reading. Until there were kobalds to kill, there was no point in him just walking around like a useless manager pretending to look busy.

  Near the front of the wagon train, Nero found the wagon he’d been assigned to in the deployment orders Cathleen sent out. It was as empty as he’d hoped, with only the driver there to do the final checks on the tack for the horses.

  Silently slipping into the back under the canvas top, Nero took his seat along one of the benches. The wagon itself was utilitarian to the point of being almost ironic. He could tell that it was a ‘fancy’ version of a transport wagon due to the padded seats and ornate woodwork. However, keeping with the cultural norm of everything being built for purpose over vanity, the benches were lined up exactly like they would be for a means of common troop transport.

  Taking advantage of the temporarily empty wagon, Nero pulled out his trusty wooden stump from his personal space to use as a footrest and closed his eyes. Intent on taking advantage of the time before people began showing up, Nero accessed his link and started reading.

  Not ten minutes later, he was brought out of his book by a sense of wrongness in the ether. Opening his eyes, he uncrossed his arms and put away his stool. His essence senses were practically screaming that something was wrong. There was a warpage to the essence flows that stood out like a bump in the ether… and it was moving.

  “Spying noble bastards!” he muttered to himself before tweaking his essence to hide himself.

  Jumping out of the back of the wagon, he silently stalked the hidden infiltrator, intent on stopping them from doing whatever it was they came here to do.

  He moved through the crowd like a wraith. It was kind of weird to be hidden while in full sunlight, and he felt rather stupid stalking around like he was some kind of assassin while everyone went on about their business. Realizing that there was no point in crouching, he forced himself to stand up.

  Slipping between the wagons, he eventually tracked down the disturbance in the ether, noticing that it was moving through the crowd with purpose. He wasn’t sure why, but he got the distinct impression that it was heading somewhere specific. Was it meeting someone? Had the house he’d set up already been filled with spies?

  Keeping his presence as hidden as possible, Nero followed along. Having to dodge people who were working was rather annoying, and it felt like it took more effort to move to the crowd while hidden rather than when he wasn’t. He could only chalk it up to people having a sixth sense about running into people that pickpockets and children naturally exploited.

  Eventually, he came to a stop when the person hiding themselves met up with others who were equally hidden. He couldn’t tell how many there were, but when they came together their essence-hiding technique seemed to merge into one large blob of warped essence flows. To Nero, it looked like a bubble of wrongness in his essence field, not doing anything, but still wrong.

  Gently, and from behind an exquisitely landscaped bush, he reached out with his essence field and probed the disturbance. Despite not needing to, it just felt wrong to be hiding without finding a bush to peek out from behind.

  He didn’t want to tip them off, but he needed to understand what he was looking at.

  The bubble of essence reminded him of something, but he couldn’t remember why. He knew he’d seen something like this before, but wasn’t exactly sure where.

  Like an unfolding origami paper plane, he lifted the essence flows and peaked behind the curtain.

  Widening his eyes, he was surprised to see the evaluators all standing there like idiots in a circle, chattering away without a care in the world.

  “The Blackwoods have been trying to drum up support to cause problems for the expanding trading houses, but Lady Verena has had too much of a head start. She’d already had plans in place for multiple trading houses in every gate, and the only thing slowing her down is the availability of trustworthy people to run them,” one of the evaluators said… Nero thought her name was Iddy or Drew or something.

  Another evaluator spoke up, “Shouldn’t be a problem. I can arrange for her to get a list of a few minor houses that have been looking for opportunities. I’ve looked into them enough to know that they’d feel grateful for the opportunity.”

  Quincy, still obviously in charge despite the fact that the evaluators were no longer wearing their stupid hat-lights, ordered, “Be sure to keep your tracks hidden. We can’t afford to let House Walker’s burgeoning leadership know how much we’re doing for them. They need to build up trust in themselves if they’re ever going to accomplish anything.”

  A dour-looking evaluator added, “This is a delicate time for any house. Right after a founding, many entrenched powers will do everything they can to pull them down. Having House Verena as a subordinate house will help, as they’ve been preparing for their ascension for years, but House Walker cannot rely on them forever.”

  Iddy, Drew, or maybe it was Dorah replied, “They can’t work against House Walker because House Walker isn’t a house in this city. They can only attack its local support structure, and that means House Verena is the target. As long as we keep foiling their plans against House Verena, House Walker can fight the kobalds without worrying about politics. Lord Walker and his house need to present a strong showing, or any hope of getting quest requests from the other cities will be ruined.”

  Quincy replied firmly, “Leave that to Lord Walker. I’m sure he’ll be able to handle the fighting. That Averett woman is managing his forces well, and I doubt she has any intention of embarrassing herself with a failure on her record. That woman will be a powerful figure in her own time. Legends will be spoken of Walker’s hands just as much they will be speaking about him. People will remember the name, Cathleen Averett.”

  For Nero, it was odd to see the normally kind and docile Quincy looking all superior and serious. Typically the man’s essence field radiated warmth and trust… not dominance. Seeing the man skillfully adjust how he was perceived by those around him was suddenly giving Nero… ideas.

  While he’d known about the evaluators leaving their jobs to follow him, he hadn’t thought much about what they’d been up to. They’d not been part of the formal oath-giving ceremony and had basically joined him through paperwork. Vera had tried to explain to him the details, but he’d found the whole thing too complicated and culturally weird… not to mention that every time he heard about people giving him everything they owned and pledging their loyalty to him it gave him heartburn.

  Keeping himself hidden, he turned away from the secret council of support he’d discovered. He didn’t know why they were so intent on hiding themselves, but as long as they were working for the betterment of his house… which it sounded like they were… then he’d just as soon stay out of it. Despite his name being on the letterhead, he didn’t feel like it was his place to pry.

  ‘Don’t lie to yourself… you just don’t care enough to get involved, which you’d have to if they knew you were aware of what they were doing,’ he mentally mocked himself for his laziness.

  Returning to his assigned wagon while still in the ‘stealth’ technique he’d been abusing, Nero hopped back up under the canvas covering.

  Seeing Nick sitting in the wagon alongside Archmage Jennings, Nero unconsciously stopped paying attention… ruining his hold on his essence field.

  Seeing him appear out of nowhere, Nick’s head whipped around to stare at him. Archmage Jennings on the other hand didn’t look in the least bit surprised to see him.

  “What the hell are you two doing here? You know what… nevermind. I’ve got a book I want to finish before we head to the mountain,” Nero declared, before waving offhandedly and adding, “Go about your business, pretend I’m not even here.”

  Ignoring the looks on their faces, Nero pulled out the wooden stump he’d been carrying around for who knows how long and took his seat. Decisively crossing his feet up on the stump, he closed his eyes and tried to return to his book.

  Archmage Jennings’ voice interrupted him before he could even begin. “Nero, we need to have a discussion about the dwarves. They’ve sent a team to fight with House Walker, and they’ve made it clear that they’re only here for you. They didn’t hesitate to let the nobles and army command know that they couldn’t care less about whether or not we humans succeed in our attempts to retake the mountain city. Apparently, King Mithrilspike made a promise to you?” he finished as though it was a question, but Nero could tell that it really wasn’t one.

  Opening one eye to glare at the archmage, Nero replied, “I don’t remember any promise about dwarves fighting with me.”

  Suddenly remembering some of the conversations he’d had with the dwarves while they’d been drinking with each other… he added, “Oh, never mind. But that was just the beer talking. Don’t worry… I’ll talk to them. It’ll be fine.”

  Both Archmage Jennings and Nick exchanged a knowing look that set Nero’s danger sense off.

  “Don’t do that! I said it’ll be fine. I can handle the dwarves, and Cathleen will be happy to have the extra manpower… dwarfpower… whatever. We can talk about it when she gets here, she’s busy getting everyone moving, and until then, I’m gonna work on finishing this book. There’s a section in here about adding the property of burning to water spells without vaporizing it. So, I’m busy,” he declared firmly before crossing his arms in a huff and closing his eyes to concentrate on his book.